Everyone in attendance at Abravanel Hall last night was treated to a very eclectic Utah Symphony concert and I, being one of the lucky few in the audience, absolutely loved it! The orchestra began with a really fun piece by Johann Sebastian Bach called Concerto for Two Violins with Madeline Adkins and Claude Halter as soloists. I especially loved the first and third movements because of the lively themes played by the soloists who seemed to respond to each other, almost as if they were dueling! Abravanel Hall was then turned into an intimate jazz club for the next two numbers by Elliott Carter and Wynton Marsalis, respectively. Two small ensemble groups were formed on either side of the stage with dramatic lighting as each performed. One group played Double Trio by Carter, which was incredibly dynamic with lots of different percussion instruments and themes played by trumpet and trombone, and the other played selections from A Fiddler's Tale by Marsalis, which featured several different styles of jazz. I am not a huge fan of jazz but I really enjoyed these pieces and I must admit that I was tapping my toes during the final selection, The Blues on Top, from A Fiddler's Tale because the musicians were definitely playing the blues and it seemed like they were having so much fun improvising (Thierry Fischer even left the podium for the last few moments to let them jam). The concert concluded with the beautiful Siegfried Idyll by Richard Wagner. This was written as a birthday present for Wagner's second wife Cosima, with whom he had a passionate affair before marrying her, after the birth of their son Siegfried. I thought it was incredibly romantic and I particularly loved all of the themes played by the woodwinds. Each of the these pieces were so different but I loved them all and I highly recommend getting a ticket to this program which will be repeated tonight and tomorrow night (go here for tickets).
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